As a dancer who creates mesmerizing visions onstage, Neve James is looking for the same kind of stability in her love life. Her pen pal, Rory McRoy, is on leave from deployment in Afghanistan, so she heads to Boston to surprise him. After corresponding for months as part of a “Support Our Troops” initiative—and exchanging dozens of “Read When You’re Alone” letters—Neve knows what Rory likes, and she intends to fulfill his every fantasy. But all they get are a few blissful moments together before they’re interrupted by a woman claiming to be Rory’s fiancée.

Rory has fallen hard for Neve’s letters. When he finally meets her in person, he has to have her, right then and there—until Neve takes off in a fit of anger. Forced to return to Afghanistan before he can fix things between them, Rory waits four agonizing months to prove that he’s not the man Neve thinks he is. But by the time he arrives in New York, she’s already made up her mind. Luckily, Rory never backs down from a challenge, and he’s prepared to put everything on the line for love.

All I Need Is You, is the second book in the Loving You series by Wendy S. Marcus. It can most certainly be read as a standalone book and (thankfully) had no cliffhanger. For the most part, I really liked this book but there were a few things that set me off about it. (Skip toward the bottom for those, mind you they are also slightly spoilers.) Now these things weren’t enough to make me set the book down, but they did bring me out of my reading euphoria and make me mentally twitch.

This was one of those books where I didn’t like the hero or heroine more than each other, it was pretty equal footing. In fact, if I’m very honest… I liked Neve’s brother the best! But, I will try not to digress here and get onto the topic of Neve and Roy.

Neve, it rhymes with leave, is a sexually confident sassy pants Adagio dancer and gymnast. She is a tiny little thing with a huge personality that packs a solid wallop. I fully admit to having a love/hate relationship with this character. There is absolutely so much that I love about her, but a few things I just want to box her ears for. She is all about breaking free and changing her life, being “different” then her past is letting her be. Cirque du Soleil has come calling and she is bound and determined to give the best audition of her life and leave her old life behind. However, life isn’t always that easy and things happen when you least expect them to.

Roy is just returning home from a tour in Afghanistan. He’s a charming guy from a large Irish family in south Boston, or Southie. He has a case of PTSD but that doesn’t keep this guy down, he’s out to prove something. I never had any moments of wanting to box Roy’s ears, thank goodness. He’s a pretty solid character in that regard. Roy jumps in with both feet to help Neve when she needs it.

Neve and Roy come back together four months after a big blow out between the pair of them. They’d been pen-pals for almost a year and Roy had assured Neve that he wasn’t with anyone. She trusted and believed that… until his “fiancee” walks in on them in a compromising situation. Roy’s back now to set the story straight, and prove that he really is trustworthy to Neve. They have a pretty rocky road, with all manner of things that go wrong, or due to their pasts or family members. Everything is pretty much stacked against these two, they both need to find themselves and sort things out before they can really -be- together… and then they still have to tackle the rest of the mess.

-SPOILERS START HERE-

Off of the top of my head, there were things about each character that really just made me twitch about this book. I mean full on pulled me out of it and just had a “Gah” moment. I did keep reading however, like I said before and they aren’t enough to take away from the story, but they are pet peeves for me. Hence my lower rating.

The very first thing that made me pause was Neve herself. She does come off extremely sexual, which that I can handle, but the way she goes about it can seem trashy, or slutty… and then she gets ticked off because people view her that way. For instance, the first letter she ever writes to Roy, she A. Tells him she’ll send him dirty letters, but oh, as an after thought, you’re not attached to anyone are you? And B. Sends him a photo of her butt in a bikini. Now, hold up here.. You don’t want to be viewed as trashy, but you send a guy a photo of your butt (which you know looks good), offer to send him naughty letters as a “distraction” and you don’t actually know if he’s unattached or not, you’re basically asking as an after thought. Yeah… that bothered me.

My issues with Roy weren’t actually with -Roy- the character, I really liked him. What I had an issue was with things that were written in regards to him. Roy is not a tall guy, which you’ll find out if you read the book… but it’s constantly touched upon as if he’s inadequate due to his height. Neve mentions it herself, but it’s more the writing that does it. It’s almost, to me, felt like height prejudice, only not? The second problem I had with Roy, was again, the writing. He has a Southie accent. Which is fine, I love guys with accents… you won’t forget he has one, however, because you’re literally taken out of the reading, to have it explained to you, multiple times, how his accent is pronounced or sounds when he is something saying. That was probably my biggest twitch of all.

– END SPOILERS-

Aside from my issues, or pet peeves if you will, I did like the story. I learned things that I didn’t know before. I had no clue what adagio was. I didn’t know about South Boston being called Southie, or that a lot of the Irish immigrants had moved there. The way those things were written was extremely well done, they touch up on them to explain them, but they don’t come across like a lecture. Which I loved. So, all and all, I would recommend this book, It had a great story to it.